The Oscars 09

Over the previous month I've been running an event on Facebook that involved trying to see as many of the films that would be nominated for Oscars as possible. Unfortunatley Facebook is a tool and the event is closing in a few days -> this is because a facebook event cannot exceed a month and this event is going to last longer than that.
So rather than set up a new event I have decided to move all activities into this blog post, which I'll continue to edit. Hopefully by the end I'll have put the films into an order of preference and written a small review for each one.

The following information is copied directly from the Facebook page:

Ok so it works like this.
I've been looking through a variety of media and noticed that a huge amount of excellent films are coming out pre - Oscar season. The majority of these movies are in all likelyhood going to be Oscar nominated.

So my suggestion is that every week, (between 11th of Jan and 20th Feb) "we" go to see 1 or 2 of these films at a variety of different cinemas.
We do this for three reasons:
1. It'll will increase our overall highbrow-ness and overall smug-oscity.
2. It'll make Mark Kermode proud.
3. Most of these films will be amazing.

So the films (complete with release dates)
Che part 1, 2nd Jan
Che part 2, 20th Feb
The Wrestler, 16th Jan
Doubt, 6th Feb
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, 6th Feb
The Reader, 2nd Jan
Revolutionary Road, 30th Jan
Slumdog Millionaire, 9th Jan
Australia, 26th Dec
Milk, 23rd Jan
Gran Torino, 20th Feb
Valkyrie, 23rd Jan

General information:
1. If you don't know what each film is about look it up on IMDB.com.
2. The earlier released movies we might not get a chance to see - just because they may have left the cinema by the time we start.
3. I don't expect everyone to go see all these movies. Although I'm going to try to.
4. If I've invited you to join this group and your at University and can't make it to Surrey, this is light handed suggestion that you get on the Oscar 09 bandwagon.
5. Valkyrie is only in this list because it's one of those crazy "cursed" films as pretty much everything that could have gone wrong on the production of that film has.

This event actually starts on the 11th of January and ends on the 20th but because Facebook is an idiot it can't cope with an event that goes over 31 days.

I just thought I'd give a progress report on what I've seen.

Australia
The Reader
Valkyrie
The Wrestler
Frost/Nixon
Milk
Slumdog Millionaire
The Curious case of Benjamin Button
Revolutionary Road
Doubt
Gran Torino

Che part 1 escaped before I could see it but I'm hoping some cinemas will screen it with Che Part 2.
Also I'm in two minds whether to see Rachel getting married because I personally believe that Anne Hathaway is one of the shittest actresses of our time and even though she is being nominated for an Oscar I just can't see how she can possibly be any good. But on the other hand it is an Oscar nominated performance which is the objective of this little venture.
If anyone has seen Rachel getting married I could do with an opinion, just write it on the wall.
Che Part 2 is not being screened anywhere - I don't think any cinema near where I live could be bothered with it. Both Part 1 and 2 are out together on DVD in June.